In her text, she talks about the changing California from when she was young to today. She stated, “It is hard to find California now, unsettling to wonder how much of it was merely imagined or improvised; melancholy to realize how much of anyone’s memory is no true memory to all but only the traces of someone else’s memory, stories handed down on the family network” (Didion, 177). In the comic, there were just images from someone’s perspective of changing place and from Didion’s essay, she also explained about the developing place and the memories from before to today. Not only this comic goes back to the essay from Joan Didion, but it can also tie with Professor Hothem a lecture about “Snapshots from the Literature of California”. He made a point about saying, “The language of place description is an excellent indicator of our attitudes toward the environment.” By just looking and observing a place or a comic, there are different perspectives and attitudes that are taken by…
Part of Joan Didion's truthfulness is in dealing with her own avoidance of grief, and the extent to which an extremely intelligent, ever-thinking person will go to escape facing pain. But halfway through this short book, only 105 pages from the end, I almost gave it up, and I'm not sure I'm glad that I didn't. The endless facts, medical explanations, and most of all, Joan's continuous detachment from any emotion, left me feeling beat up and worn down. Yes, it even annoyed me a little. I give her all the credit in the world for approaching her task. Her love for her husband and daughter is extraordinarily apparent by the picture she paints of them, but she still comes through as only an observer. "The Year of Magical Thinking" is written in…
All people in the world should show courage . In Mildred Taylor's book ROLL OF THUNDER HEAR MY CRY Stacey has to show courage when he stood up for his convictions. The book was set during the south in the (1930’s) where the black was treated bad because of their skin color .Stacey had to show courage when he stayed in the woods to keep an eye on T.j to see if they take T.j into the woods to get hung. Stacey also had to show courage when he stood up for T.j for cheating.…
Just as she found it extremely difficult accepting the fact of her once young boy, growing up into the mature young man he was becoming, she found it hard to cope with the idea of her daughter not being as dependent anymore. In Olds’ forth poem, “First Thanksgiving”, Reminiscing back to the diaper days, she draws memories of her once young daughter, “those nights, I fed her to sleep, week after week, the moon rising and setting, and waxing- whirling, over the months, in a slow blur, around our planet” (10-13). Thinking back to these times, taking care of her daughter, nurturing her, shows there was no similar effect as to her way of being raised, on her daughter. Just as her relationship was strong and compassionate with her son, Olds’ treasured the time she had with her daughter and valued everything that has come into her life at this time. No matter what challenges individuals face in life, the path they choose to take, as an adult can be completely the opposite as to what they knew, as Sharon proceed to…
The second part of the poem ‘Nightfall’ continues the story of the child forty years from ‘Barn owl’, where she had lost her innocence by shooting an owl and this had resulted in a heavy hearted guilt which was caused by her unknowing and stubborn actions. The poem represents death closing in on the father, and the limitations of time on their relationship that was never experienced before in her younger years. The father, who in the first poem is depicted as an “old no-sayer”, is now held in high esteem, he is admired and respected as an “old king”. The extended metaphor “Since there is no more to taste ripeness is plainly all. Father we pick our last fruits of the temporal.” Appeals to our senses and is now an aural metaphor, it illustrates the father’s life becoming fulfilled or ripe, it has come near to its end and the father and child will now spend or pick the last moments of the father’s life together. Over time her appreciation of her father has changed, this is shown through “Who can be what you were?” and “Old King, your marvellous journey’s done.” She has realised the valuable life her father has led and the great loss that will be felt after he is gone. The child, now a grown woman learns another lesson about death, it can be quiet and peaceful, and “Your night and day…
In this poem Chrystal Meeker does an exceptional job of showing what this family is going through. We understand that they are far from rich but that there is true love and loyalty from this mother toward her children. The reader also understands what the mother sacrifices, but more importantly her daughters come to appreciate what she has done for…
The attempt at recapturing the past is important in plays, poems, and especially novels. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Sethe views the past with feelings of longing because she was a former slave who endured a tough life. Due to Sethe’s longing feelings, the theme of slavery as a destruction of one’s identity is developed in the work. Sethe is an enslaved woman in Cincinnati, Ohio who is determined to escape to freedom in the 1850’s. In order to keep her children from any trauma from Sweet Home, she attempts to murder them. She manages to kill Beloved and her two older boys run away, so she is left with Denver. Her feelings of longing come into play when Beloved shows up out of the water. Immediately, Sethe finds it strange…
Sharon Olds’ poem “I Go Back to May 1937” is written as if the speaker; which appears to be female is looking back in time to when he or she’s parents first met and married. The speaker throughout the poem does not seem pleased with the events that unfolded thereafter, but nonetheless understands that there is nothing that she could have done to stop it from happening. The poem gives a short glimpse into the life the couple had and the effect it had on the child/narrator. The poem is almost a flashback, but instead of first person point of view, it is told from the perception of the child’s viewpoint, which seems predominately that of despair and hopelessness.…
After bringing us into the peaceful settings of a child’s world, both authors send us plummeting into deep thought. Dove does so by abruptly letting us know that this grandfather is no longer alive but his memory or “hands” still exist in our minds as it did when it was written in this 5th grader’s autobiography. What does this say about her grandfather’s existence and death? Perhaps that recording it through a photo or even the writing of a 5th grader, it has become eternal. This pushes us to think about the sheer power of writing our…
In Didion’s “On Going Home” family has shaped the author in a way a lot of readers can connect with and feel more in touch with their emotions. It is very clear the author’s tone is warming and sincere when it comes to family. Didion talks about her home saying “I am home for my daughter’s first birthday. By…
Flowing from Virginia Woolf’s poem “Memoirs of Being” is a beautiful piece of her childhood. This picture that has been created, is one that is filled with imagery, anaphora, and is an allusion to a time when her cares were not burdened in the way that they would become later in the poem. We can see that the piece is a picture of a time of youth. One that is not yet marred with the understanding of consequences. And a joy can be seen from start to finish, but her understanding of that joy experienced growth during this piece. Although, she doesn’t agree with her truly enjoys her trip, she finds that the joy experienced therein is one that is a ‘momentary glimpse’ of her childhood, and not one that would be repeated.…
As she grew older she began to resent Nanny for showing her a way of life where what matters is not the emotional but only the economic stability of the person whom she would be spending her life with. A person such as Janie who viewed the world as the blossoming pear tree where she once sat under and questioned her own nature was able to learn not to mourn but to live “To my thinkin’ mourning oughtn’t tuh last no longer’n grief.”(Page 114). Years ago Janie had told herself to wait for her in the looking glass. “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place”(Page 108) the moment where she was able to separate herself from the “weak” animals and children that could not think for themselves. However it was when Nanny had died along with her dream of love that she became…
Throughout the ages, authors have been known to use many of their life experiences in their literary works. They use certain moments that have been imprinted in their heads, because in some way these specific experiences have changed their lives. For instance, Theodore Roethke wrote the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz” in which he writes about a moment from his early childhood that probably affected him so deeply that he was never able to forget about it. This shows that certain moments in our childhood are particularly crucial to the way we turn out to be as adults.…
The very essence of childhood is never forgotten. A memory, a scent, a certain feeling will never be lost in time, as the child transforms from the younger years of bliss to an older life of enduring hardships and burdens. Yet with his aging, memories are still alive in everyone. Many of the memories etched in the brain forever are caused by a parent or parents in the way they choose to raise their young sometimes creating a negative memory and also creating very positive, pleasant memories. Torn between the beliefs of two parents, Zora Neale Hurston is able to show both sides of childhood memories in her autobiography. Through diction and manipulation of point of view, Zora Neale Hurston conveys not only a plentiful and satisfying childhood within the bounds of her own childhood but also a sense of a childhood restricted by fears of the outside worlds and the fears that was apart of it.…
Home is a place where most experience ultimate comfort, security, and emotional ties. As reading Joan Didion’s “On Going Home” you can feel the tone and passion she has towards home, especially proven when she states, “Days pass. I see no one. I come to dread my husband’s evening call, not only because he is full of news of what by now seems to me our remote life in Los Angeles, people he has seen, letters which require attention, but because he ask what I have been doing, suggests uneasily that I get out and drive away, instead I drive across the river to a family graveyard.”(141) She’s completely content on being satisfied by home with its simple ways and family surroundings. That’s why going home to Joan is the ultimate comfort, security, and emotional relief; because she’s with family.…